Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

Spring 5-2-2024

Faculty Advisor(s)

Micol Hebron

Abstract

A vertical 24 x 20-inch at 200 DPI image containing a background of the sun and space, a middle ground of icy plains, and a foreground of a desert. The collage also contains images of burning candles, dead flowers, eyes, a hand, a candle person, a star, and a statue of two figures. The candles stand on the platform of the statue, while the dead flowers cover both the faces of the two statutes with the hand pointing at the statue; the candle person stares directly at the statue.

This piece is about a gifted child and the process of burning out due to high standards and changes in their environment. Often, the gifted child thrives in k-12 school, easily earning As and appeasing their parents and teachers, becoming a star but over time they begin to burn themselves on the self and imposed, constantly rising standards and begin to have a difficult time and cannot keep up. It is very common for a gifted child to arrive at higher education and be unable to succeed because they never learned how to study in class leading them to drop out or fail desperately. The metaphor I've placed is that the gifted child is much like a candle, burning until it is exhausted and is then discarded as trash because it can no longer provide a service.

For creating the collage I chose a lot of candles to convey that metaphor, I also chose the genre of the Pieta position for the statue because I wanted to show a relationship between the parent and the gifted (Madonna and child), to demonstrate how high standards also come from parents. I included a picture of the fallen angel and a falling star to illustrate how they fall from the graces of society once they no longer astonish people with their intelligence and skill.

Comments

Presented at the Spring 2024 Student Scholar Symposium at Chapman University.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
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